Transcript

If the summer heat’s had you cranking up the A/C, you might be anxious about
getting a big bill in the mail. Imagine if your house could send you an
email to warn you that you’re spending a lot before the bill arrives. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Rebecca Williams explains.

In the future, your electricity meter could talk to you.

You’d be able to type into your computer how much you want to spend on lighting and cooling
your house each month. Using wireless technology, your utility meter would
then send you an email when you’re going over those goals.

It’s a system created by mechanical engineering students at the University
of Michigan. Professor Steven Skerlos advises the team.

“As a recent homeowner, it was very obvious to me that even I had little
awareness of the impact that I was having and the consumption of course
until it was way too late. The bill comes a couple months later and you
can’t go back in time and turn down the thermostat or use less water.”

Skerlos says the system can also be used in water and gas meters.

But it might be several years before you can get the new system. Skerlos
says he’s had interest from the companies that make the meters, the next
step is getting utility companies to buy in.

For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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General Motors has been watching its SUV sales take a turn for the worse. In their first fiscal quarter, the company lost 1.3 billion dollars. And now GM says it’ll have to cut 25,000 jobs in the next three years to stay profitable. But some GM workers hope the automaker’s move toward greener vehicles will put it back in the black. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull reports:

Transcript

General Motors has been watching its SUV sales take a
turn for the worse. In their first fiscal quarter, the company
lost 1.3 billion dollars. And now GM says it’ll have to cut
25 thousand jobs in the next three years to stay profitable. But some
G-M workers hope the automaker’s move toward greener vehicles will put
it back in the black. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Brian Bull
reports:

Compared to its competitors, GM has been slow to develop
gasoline-electric hybrid automobiles. In the past, GM officials
have said they’re concentrating on creating hydrogen powered fuel
cells for their vehicles.

“We’re building a new vehicle here in Janesville. It’s a
new version of the Tahoe and Suburban. It’ll have the hybrid engine
in 2007. Then we can have three plants building this vehicle and if
people buy it, we’ll be fine.”

Last year, more than eighty thousand hybrid cars were sold in the U.S.
That only makes up less than one percent of all vehicles sold.

Still, industry watchers say, as long as gas prices keep rising, so will
hybrid sales.

Transcript

A new bill in Congress aims to ban the importation and
possession of a fish that threatens the Great Lakes. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports.

Biologists say if Asian carp ever get into the Lakes, the fish would do major
damage to aquatic life.

Even though the carp are already in some Midwest rivers, several states ban people from importing or having the fish. Wisconsin Republican Congress member Mark Green says the ban needs to be nationwide.

“There are some areas that don’t have Asian carp now. So by
banning the importation we at least hopefully stem the flow while we
take other steps.”

Steps like making sure a new publicly funded carp barrier is finished in a canal southwest of Chicago. A bill Green has introduced would add four types of Asian carp to a list of destructive species currently banned under federal law.

Green expects opposition from parts of the aquaculture industry. It’s generally thought that the Asian carp first entered Midwest rivers when they got away from fish farms during floods.

Transcript

A government study released by the Ontario Ministry of the
Environment confirms what Canadian officials have long suspected:
that the majority of Ontario’s air pollution comes from U.S. sources.
The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Cwiek reports:

The study found that more than half of Ontario’s air
pollution originates in the U.S. The study’s authors say air
pollution flows across the border in both directions, but the
predominant flow is from the U.S. into Canada.

“There’s a fairly wide regional impact. Obviously, it’s a
greater issue particularly in the Windsor area because it’s
closer to Detroit. In Toronto, being a larger city, probably
only about half of the pollution that we would have on a bad
pollution day would be transboundary pollution.”

Wildlife photographers Carl Sams and Jean Stoick have been taking pictures of Michigan wildlife for more than twenty years. What started as a hobby has become a lucrative business and spawned two best-selling children’s books. But this year, the work has become about more than just taking beautiful pictures. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Charity Nebbe has the story:
http://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/06/nebbe_062705.mp3

Transcript

Wildlife photographers Carl Sams and Jean Stoick have been taking pictures of Michigan wildlife for more than twenty years. What started as a hobby has become a lucrative business and spawned two best-selling children’s books. But this year, the work has become about more than just taking beautiful pictures. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Charity Nebbe has the story:

(Sound of birds chirping)

It’s early morning, and Carl Sams and his wife and partner, Jean Stoick, have gotten up to take pictures of wildlife in the early morning light.

“Oh, look, we got a deer. Right out there in the water. Is that beautiful. This is incredible. The very doe – I worked here back in 1982 – she crossed this lake, just the lake here, and she was pregnant, and since then I’ve taken over a hundred thousand pictures. Now this doe, she’s actually out eating lily pads right now, and this is typical for deer at this time of year to do that.”

“I grew up hunting and fishing, but I sold my guns and bows for a down payment on a lens and now I can shoot a hundred thousand deer and not be arrested, no seasons, no license, and I can be out here all the time. Not many people can make a living at something that they really love. This is a dream.”

When Carl started to make a living from his pictures, he and Jean bought a second camera so she could join him in the field. Most of their pictures are taken near their home at a park in southeast Michigan. And over the past twenty years, Carl and Jean seem to have developed a rapport with the creatures they photograph.

(Sound of camera)

“Okay, ready?”

Jean coaxes a wing-flap out of a female swan as if she was a fashion model.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

(Sound of camera snapping)

STOICK: “Wasn’t she perfect?”

NEBBE: “Exactly on cue.”

STOICK: “Exactly on cue.”

For many years, they sold prints of their work to magazines, calendars, greeting card companies, and on the art show circuit. Then recently, they decided to create a book about white-tailed deer. But as they were selecting their pictures, Jean’s imagination took them in another direction.

“I noticed that we had an awful lot of good images of the deer and birds interacting with a particular snowman that we had built three years earlier. So I mentioned to Carl, I says, ‘You know, why not do a children’s book? It would be a whole lot more fun.'”

That first book became the best-selling children’s book Stranger in the Woods. Their second book, Lost in the Woods, is the story of a fawn alone in the forest. All of the animals it encouters worry that the fawn is lost, but in the end, we learn its mother leaves the baby alone because it has no scent and won’t attract predators. She’s free to forage for food and come back later to take care of her fawn.

The pictures are meant to be beautiful and the book fun to read, but Carl and Jean are hoping the readers will remember what they learn.

“The lost fawn concept is a mistake that people make over and over every spring. They unintentionally rescue fawns that they think have been abandoned, and children are good messengers.”

The couple is working to spread their message with visits to elementary schools and libraries. That fills a lot of their days, but almost every morning and every evening, they can be found doing what they love to do most: taking pictures.

“It’s amazing how graceful she is. I think sometimes she likes to pose. Here she comes again.”

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People rarely build a house with tornadoes in mind. Some think that developers and homeowners should be more aware of potential natural disasters. (Photo courtesy of the NOAA)

There’s a whole category of disasters people think will probably never happen to them. Major floods, landslides, and earthquakes happen sometimes decades or centuries apart. So, people don’t think about them or they ignore the risks. And, some experts say, that’s why we build or buy houses
in places that really aren’t safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Melissa Ingells reports:
http://environmentreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2005/06/ingells_062705.mp3

Transcript

There’s a whole category of disasters people think will probably never happen to them. Major floods, landslides, and earthquakes happen sometimes decades or centuries apart. So, people don’t think about them or they ignore the risks. And, some experts say, that’s why we build or buy houses in places that really aren’t safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells reports:

Disasters happen. It’s only a matter of when. The problem is, we prepare for things like tornadoes that happen every year, but we aren’t prepared for a major flood that might only happen once a century. Donald Hyndman is with the Department of Geology at the University of Montana. He’s an expert on disasters.

“People just do not understand the scale of events, they also don’t understand that if in their lifetime there hasn’t been a really major event, that there won’t be a really major event.”

So Hyndman has co-written a new textbook on disasters. He says there’s a lot of pressure to build houses in places that are hazardous. Maybe it’s just a great view, so people build there despite warnings. Or, they think they can stop the ground from moving with retaining walls, or think they can stop floods using levees. Donald Hyndman says that even well built projects just can’t stand the power of nature.

“There is increasing pressure to build in the same lowlands, the same flood plain areas, and the developers say, well, the Army Corps of Engineers has built a major levee or dyke here, that protects people on these floodplains. The problem is, levees break and they always break.”

Donald Hyndman’s co-author is his son, David Hyndman, a geologist from Michigan State University. David Hyndman, says even when a place is a known area for disasters, demand for housing means buildings go up all over again in the same spot.

“There’s always development pressure, and the developers even fairly soon after large floods like some that occurred in California, they keep pushing and the public has forgotten what has occurred and then often the development will be allowed, which causes a disaster afterwards.”

Donald and David Hyndman both say developers don’t help the situation when they build in dangerous areas.

But folks in the housing business say there are plenty of laws to warn potential homeowners, before a house is even built. Lynn Egbert is the CEO of the Michigan Association of Homebuilders. He says that people often ignore the regulations because they want to live where they want to live.

“Consumer desire – consumer interest and desire is the primary reason, even though there are state regulations and federal regulations to put people on notice and protect against the risk for insurance, to locate where they want to locate, which is a property right.”

Egbert says that real estate people and lenders are supposed to let property owners know of the risks. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes people don’t know to ask. And sometimes people think that despite the risks, a disaster just won’t happen to them. Donald Hyndman says we don’t respect how powerful the earth really is.

“Basically, some people feel that they can control nature, or improve on nature, and I’ve actually heard some politicians say we can improve on nature. We can not only not affect the results, those results are typically – they typically backfire. So we really cannot control nature.”

The Hyndmans are hoping their new textbook will help build awareness of all kinds of disasters—but especially the ones that could happen right in our own backyard.

Transcript

As the hot weather settles in, air conditioners are
being wedged into windows everywhere. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly usually tries not to use one. But
she finds as the temperatures rise, her concerns for the
environment evaporate.

Every year – late spring – I start my annual denial of the fact that I need air conditioning.
The problem is, I really relate to the people who wave it away and say, all you need is a ceiling fan and nice cold glass of water.

Like my friend Ross, who has no air conditioning on the job as a home renovator, and no air conditioner at home, either.

“Well, it’s not really anything ethical. I just find that recycled air, it sort of smells bad. And I would prefer breathing steamy but clean air to cooled but stale air.”

Ross is one of those people who thinks it’s silly to use air conditioning where we live, which is in Ottawa, Canada. I mean, come on, we might only have a couple of weeks of hot weather. And in the beginning, I try to do without.

I have fans. I drink iced lattes. I take cool baths.

But the truth is, I can’t take it. My brain just stops functioning properly. Like the time my husband came home to find me trying to work at the computer in tears, because I was so hot. Meanwhile, the air conditioner is in the window, but I was refusing to turn it on.

Part of it is that I’m worried about the impact on the environment. I talked to Corey Diamond at the Clean Air Foundation in Toronto and asked him how bad is air conditioning really?
He agreed it uses a lot of electricity, but even worse, he says we’re all using it at the same time.

“Everybody sort of comes home at five o’clock, turns on their air conditioning, and we get to a point where the electricity grid is at the peak demand that it can access. What ends up happening is when people are demanding more power, they have to use as much coal as they can to meet that demand.”

And that means more pollution, which leads to smog, health problems and maybe even climate change.
Despite that, I recently decided I had to have air conditioning in my car – both for my own comfort and the safety of other drivers.

I tend to get disoriented in the heat. I usually relied on a bottle of ice water between my knees and the windows wide open. About an hour later, I’d be taking the wrong exit off the highway.

So, I recently took my 1990 Honda Accord into the shop to find out if they could fix it. I was prepared to spend a few hundred dollars, maybe more. Then they call back with a quote of one thousand eight hundred dollars.

That’s probably more than my car is worth. The guy on the phone says at that price, he won’t let me get it fixed, even if I want to. So the car is out of the question. But at home, the heat creeps into my living room, and the temptation becomes too great.

Third day of plus 85 temperatures… What more do I have to say?

(Sound of air conditioning)

My 18 month old daughter stands in front of the air conditioner. She reaches her arms towards it. She basks in its coolness.

“How does that feel? Good… good…good!”

I’ve given in to my weaker self. But I’m still determined to use the air conditioner sparingly.
Corey Diamond at the Clean Air Foundation gave me a bunch of ideas on how to do that.

“Keep the blinds drawn during the day. You want to install some ceiling fans if you have some. And lastly, you can add a timer to your air conditioner. You sort of set it to come on at four o’clock and if you get home at five o’clock from work, your house is cool, but it hasn’t been cooled all day.”

At first, Diamond’s group tried to get people to stop using air conditioning. That didn’t work. So they switched gears. They started a program in Toronto where you can trade in your old, inefficient air conditioner for a rebate on a new one. Diamond says the newer ones use as much as 70 percent less electricity.

So as I sit here, telling you this story, I have a new air conditioner with an Energy Star sticker on it.
Which means either the Canadian or American government deemed it more efficient. I do kind of feel like I’m working in a wind tunnel. And I miss the sounds of the birds and squirrels outside my window. But yet, I feel comfortable.

Transcript

Members of Congress from eight Great Lakes states have introduced
legislation to permanently ban oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes.
They say the Lakes are vulnerable to environmental damage if a temporary ban
is allowed to expire. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tracy Samilton
reports:

The temporary ban on Great Lakes drilling is due to expire in 2007.

Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak says oil leaks from drilling pollute the
Lakes, and people could be injured or even killed by releases of toxic
hydrogen sulfide from gas drilling.

Four Great Lakes states have their own drilling bans. But Stupak says the issue is too important to take the risk that new state legislatures might lift the ban.

“We think it should be federal policy. The federal government has acted once or twice for at least these temporary bans that we have in place right now, so why don’t we just make it part of our
energy policy and permanently ban oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes?”

Stupak says a federal ban might also convince Canada to consider follow
suit. He says there are about eighty oil spills a year in the Lakes from
Canadian oil rigs.

Energy companies maintain the practice is safe both for the environment and people’s health.

Transcript

A new study suggests the build-up of phosphorus in lakes may cause problems
for hundreds of years. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach
reports:

Many farmers and other landowners use phosphorus-rich fertilizers on their property, but when the chemical runs off into lakes and streams, it can lead to algae blooms, depletion of oxygen, and fish
kills.

New research says it can take decades or hundreds of years for phosphorus to cycle out of a watershed. University of Wisconsin – Madison Professor Stephen Carpenter did the study. He says the effects won’t be as long-lasting if more phosphorus controls are put in place.

“For example we could develop more buffer strips, restore more wetlands, move point sources away from streams and lakes and maybe even innovate new technologies for keeping phosphorus on the
land.”

Farm groups say many of their members are trying to reduce soil erosion and chemical runoff. Carpenter says that’s true, but he says in some watersheds, much stronger action is needed.

For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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As President Bush prods Congress to pass his Energy Bill, a new poll suggests nine out of ten Americans want to reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign oil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

Transcript

As President Bush prods Congress to pass his Energy Bill, a new poll
suggests nine out of ten Americans want to reduce the nation’s dependence on
foreign oil. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Sarah Hulett reports:

The Yale University survey suggests that anxieties in Washington over America’s reliance on foreign oil match people’s concerns at the dining room table and around the water cooler.

Dependence on imported oil was ranked highest on people’s list of concerns – above jobs and the economy, high gasoline prices, and pollution.

Dan Esty is the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. He says the survey also suggests that Americans don’t want to develop more domestic fossil fuels.

“They don’t want to drill in Alaska National Wildlife Refuge. They don’t want to have more coal-based power, even though that might come from domestic sources. They really want to see a big new push for some alternative energies, and for some new technologies.”

Nine out of ten people surveyed also cited higher fuel economy standards as a good way to reduce foreign oil dependence. But lawmakers have so far rejected efforts to impose new efficiency mandates.